Author Bio

DANIEL DITTY

SUSQUEHANNA RIVER, 1980

The boy’s father wakes him. It is either very early or very late; the boy can’t tell. He has been sleeping on the rough, red carpet of his grandfather’s farmhouse den, wrapped in a tattered quilt. The boy’s father smells of beer and cigarettes and sweat.
       “Shh,” he says. “Shh. Don’t wake them up.” He points to the boy’s brother and sister sleeping on the couch on the other side of the dark room. “They’re not coming,” he says, shaking his head. “Just you.” And he pushes the index finger of his right hand into the boy’s chest.
       The boy’s father doesn’t seem drunk but he might be; the boy isn’t good at discerning that yet. It will be years before he can tell.
       “Where were you?”
       “Shh,” his father says. “Get dressed.”
       The house is dark save the beam the porch light casts through the backdoor and the kitchen and down the hall. It’s nothing more than a sliver when it reaches the den, cutting straight across the room, hitting the clock on the far wall, dead-center. Tick tock. Five twenty-three. The pendulum, swinging in and out of the dark, flashes like a beacon.

The moon is high and full. The boy’s father turns out the porch light and the boy can see everything, clear as day. The barn, the tractor, the pond, the dirt road that winds down between the hills beside the creek. The boy has been here only five days but he knows it all, could draw it from memory, as if he’s been here his whole life.
       On the road, under the old oak, a white Ford pickup with blue side panels idles. Exhaust boils up into the moonlight. The boy’s uncle sits behind the wheel.
       The boy’s father leads him silently down the hill to the truck. He says nothing, just walks ahead, and the boy understands he is to follow. The boy’s father opens the passenger door, the boy slides to the middle and then his father climbs in.
       The man the boy calls his uncle is not his father’s brother but rather his childhood friend. His father calls him “Goose” and the boy calls him “Uncle Goose,” never asking why.
       “You ready, Chief?” Uncle Goose says and puts the truck into gear.
       Uncle Goose feels like family to the boy because he is in so many of his father’s stories. Stories about hunting and cars and worrying about the draft.
       They drive slowly with no headlights, the road lit by the moon.
       The cows are up and line the fence, stretching their necks between the rails, their tongues grabbing the furthest blades of grass they can reach.
       The boy looks to Goose and then to his father.
       “Where are we going?” he asks.
       “You’ll see,” his father says.
      
They drive empty country roads. Nothing but corn and power lines and cows. The boy’s father pulls two cans from a paper bag at his feet. He opens them and hands one to Goose.
       “I’m going to need you to do the shifting now,” Goose says, knocking the can against the gear shift that rises from the floorboards in front of the boy, as if to show how the can makes his shifting impossible. “When I say ‘go’ you just pull it right towards you, okay?” Goose shuffles his feet on the pedals and yells, “Go!” And the boy pulls—panicked, unsure if he is up to the responsibility—and the shifter jerks in his hand as something below him grinds and growls.
       “Okay! That’s fine. That’s good enough. Here we go,” Goose says and shuffles his feet again. And the truck picks up speed and the boy’s father puts his hand on top of the boy’s head and pulls him to his chest.
       “Good job, kiddo,” he says.

They pull up in front of a big white house with a dog on a chain and a boat in the driveway. The boy’s father gets out while Goose turns the truck around. The dog, a black lab, strains against the chain, barking angrily at the boy’s father but wagging its tail all the while. It’s tethered to one half of a cordless clothesline. Two metal “T”s, made of pipe, sprouting from the ground, one tipped longingly toward the other. Two crooked, decapitated crosses, with nothing to do now but hold the dog back. The boy’s father pays the dog no mind, stands in front of the boat on its trailer and guides the truck back.
       A man the boy has never seen before emerges from the house. He is wearing a T-shirt, running shorts, and dark green rubber boots that come up to his knees. He is waving his arms and running toward them. He stops, suddenly, and turns to yell at the dog. “Shut up,” he yells. “Shut up.” But he is not raising his voice. He looks like he is yelling but he is not loud; the boy can barely hear him. It’s just pantomime. The dog quiets but continues to pull against the chain, its feet slipping in the dirt.
       The boy’s father approaches the man. The boy cannot hear what his father says but he hears the man say, “I know I said you could borrow it but it’s six-fucking-thirty in the morning.” Goose laughs suddenly and loudly, startling the boy, and gets out.
       The three of them—the father, the man, and Goose—stand in a tight circle. The man hugs himself against the cold. His is the only face the boy can see. They talk quietly. Their words come out in little puffs of steam and those puffs of steam hang in the air for a moment after the words are gone then dissipate and disappear. The man raises an eyebrow, then shakes his head, then smiles. The man is pointing to different parts of the boat and the boy’s father is nodding.
       The dog barks and pulls on the chain. It keeps the chain taut, moving left and right as if looking for a secret angle where the chain will give and it will be free. The man no longer tries to quiet it. It barks and barks.
       The men all laugh. Then, a light appears in an upper window of the house and the man claps the boy’s father on the shoulder. “Well, alright, you fuckers have fun,” he says and the boy thinks nothing of it; everyone around his father talks like that.
       The boy can still hear the dog as they drive away, can see it when he looks back, tail still wagging, still tugging against the chain.

The boat is white and red and sun-faded. The bottom is covered in rotten leaves and empty cans. A messy coil of fraying nylon ropes and weathered rubber floats have been shoved into the corner. The sun is rising and its light brings a pressing heat but in the shadows it is still cold. The boy sits on the cracked vinyl seat, the stuffing, soggy and dark with mildew, pushing through the splitting seams. He holds a bottle of Coca-Cola and a bag of chips. His father has given him a navy blue cap that reads “Allison Transmission” across the front and he wears it tight and low to keep it from flying off. Beneath a stiff and itchy life vest—its straps tied loosely with impatience when the buckles proved too frustrating—the boy sweats through his T-shirt.
       His father and Goose drink cheap beer and only beer because it is early. They take turns tooling up and down the river from the bridge down to the spillway. They call the spillway “the falls.” Beyond the falls the river narrows and the water moves faster. When they slow the boat and pull the throttle back to an idle, the boy can hear the roar of the water crashing onto the concrete below.
       Dozens of bottles and cans, some full, some empty, float in the icy water of a green, metal-sided cooler, missing its lid. The plastic stubs of two broken hinges jut skyward, like two raised hands. His father had tried to cover it with a folded towel, to function as a makeshift lid, but the towel quickly fell in and is now lying on the bottom of the boat, soaked and useless.

Over and over again the boy’s father and Goose take turns speeding up and down this short length of river. With each pass they get bolder, more reckless. They go faster and faster, trying to outdo each other. The whole thing frightens the boy but he says nothing. He holds the aluminum rail that runs atop the side of the boat. He holds on so tight for so long that the tips of his fingers go numb. Later, at night, he will notice the beginnings of a blister across his palm.
       The boy has never been on a boat like this before. He doesn’t think his father has either. They don’t have friends with boats at home. It all seems so exciting to the boy’s father and, in the brief moments when the boat is slow and the water is calm and the boy is not afraid, he feels happy to see him excited. And when he is afraid, he keeps quiet, not wanting to change things. He wishes he could hide and be forgotten so he could just watch and listen and see how his father is without him. See him happy and unworried.
       Uncle Goose helms the boat now. He pushes the boat faster than either of them has yet. The motor roars and the bow rises. The boy slides down the wet bench seat, the broken vinyl scratching his thighs. His hand slips along the rail until it meets a bracket, where it is pinched. The boat begins to bounce. They are moving up the river, against the current. The wind has picked up and the water is choppy. The boat flies off the crest of each successive wave then slams back down, whipping the boy’s head back and forth despite his every effort to control it. He is thrown from the seat each time. The boat skips across the water like a stone. Water sprays over the side and the big, heavy drops sting the boy’s face. The boat launches from the next crest and stays in the air a beat longer. Time seems to freeze for a moment. The boy is floating, only his grip on the bar keeping him tethered to the boat. He feels that if he were to let go, he would float away, as if gravity has been reversed and only his grip on that thin, shiny rail keeps him from spiraling into space.
       When the boat returns to the water with a slam, Goose turns the wheel hard left and the boat cuts and a mass of water splashes up over the side and overwhelms the boat. The engine stops.
       The boy’s father and Goose laugh. They are soaked and dripping. The boy is soaked too.
       The cooler has tipped and beer cans and bottles skitter and roll across the flooded bottom of the boat as it rocks, slowly settling. The boy’s father scampers around, on hands and knees, collecting them. He cradles them in his arm across his stomach and dumps them back into the cooler. Then he stands up straight, hoists his sagging cut-off khakis, and shakes his head.
       “You son of bitch,” the boy’s father says. “You scared the shit out of me.” But he is smiling.
       Goose pushes the throttle forward and turns the key but nothing happens.
       “You killed it,” the boy’s father says but he is not angry.
       “It’ll start,” Goose says but it does not.

Without the engine, the boat is quiet. It rocks on the waves under the bridge where it cut out. The trees on the bank in the distance slowly slip away, marching upriver like ranks of soldiers. The boy loosens his grip. He can hear the slap of water against the side of the boat, and the faint ticking of the cooling engine.
       They have decided to just let it dry out, content to let the current carry them and to relax beneath the sun.
       Barn swallows flitter in and out of the little mud-hut nests they’ve built beneath the bridge. The boat nears one of the piers and Goose grabs two buoys from the tangled pile and throws them over the side. The boat gives a slight jerk but it is still enough to make Goose and the boy’s father lose their footing, to stumble in a drunken dance. 
       They are bare-chested. Their backs and shoulders are stark white; their forearms and necks dark with years of sun and work. They are men but they are not old men; not long ago they were children waiting impatiently to be grown.
       The boy’s father grabs a fresh beer and sits next to him. He cracks the beer and a geyser of foam rushes out. He lunges forward and covers the can with his open mouth, trying to contain the spillage. Beer sprays from his mouth, spilling over his hand and pouring out. A stream squirts up between his glasses and his face. “Son of a bitch!” he yells then turns to the boy. Beer drips from his lenses. The father looks at the boy, shakes his head. When he smiles, the boy knows it is okay to laugh.

On opposite sides of the boat, Uncle Goose and the boy’s father lean back and put their faces to the sun. They trade stories and laugh and empty can after can until their white skin turns pink. Most of the stories make little sense to the boy. They’re stories about people he doesn’t know, places he’s never been. But later, when he’s older, he’ll recognize them as stories of frustration. Stories about always looking forward to freedom only to realize it was all behind them.

They have drifted slowly downriver now for nearly an hour. The falls are near. The boy’s father sits down behind the wheel. He pulls the throttle back, flips a switch or two, then turns the key. Nothing happens.
       “Shit,” the boy’s father says.
       “Try it again.”
       “No use. You swamped it.”
       “What do you mean? It’s a boat; it’s supposed to get wet.”
       Goose takes the boy’s father’s place and tries again and again; nothing happens. A rapid click-click-click comes from somewhere near the back of the boat but the engine remains silent. The boy’s father walks to the back of the boat. He removes a panel and the boy is worried but hopeful—his father can fix anything.
       They drift a while longer, silently. Until Goose says: “Shit, Bill, we’re getting pretty close. I mean, we’re running out of river.”
       The boy’s father looks up. “Try it again,” he says.
       Again nothing happens.
       The boy cranes his neck over the side of the boat.
       “We’re going to have to swim for it,” Goose says. “Those falls are coming.” And the boy can’t tell but he thinks he’s teasing. He’s playing. His demeanor is different. He’s acting.
       The boy’s father stands from the seat, moves to Goose, and looks down river. “Well, shit, maybe,” he says and the boy thinks he’s acting too but he can’t tell.
       His father glances toward Goose though the boy can’t tell what passes between them.
       “Yep. It’s coming up pretty quick. Maybe we better swim for it.”
       But they wouldn’t let the boat go over the falls. What would they tell the man with the dog?
       “The bank ain’t that far.”
       Goose takes two steps back. “I’m going!” he yells, as he launches himself over the side. The boy watches him tumble through the air, arms and legs flailing and kicking. He lands with a loud splash.
       The boy’s father turns and walks to the side of the boat. He steps up on the seat and puts one foot on the aluminum rail, the one the boy has clung to all morning. He looks down the river and then out to the river bank. He doesn’t even glance at the boy who sits right next to him.
       “The boat can’t really go over, can it?” the boy asks.
       “Hell, yes, it can.”
       “But I can’t swim,” the boy says.
       His father then looks down to him. “What do you mean? You took lessons.”
       “Yeah, but they didn’t teach me. I don’t know how.”
       “Well, shit, I don’t know what we’ll do now. We’re going to have to swim for it. The boat won’t start.”
       “But I can’t.”
       His father gives a pensive frown then he winds up, ready to spring forward, to dive. But there is a pause. Just the slightest hesitation. For a moment, the boy knows, his father thinks about not doing it. His father thinks that this joke is too much, that to jump in would be too far. The boy thinks about this pause often. Returns to that moment and wonders.
       Then the boy’s father dives. He flies through the air and plunges into the water, as graceful as anything the boy had ever seen his father do. He disappears with barely a splash.
       The boy stands. He is panicked. Goose laughs, treading water. The boy’s father stays under for longer than the boy expects. The boy cannot see him. He thinks he can hear the falls.
       “Jump!” Goose yells.
       This could be real, the boy thinks.
       And he jumps.
       He feels the shock of the cold water. His shirt and shorts fill with air. The water tugs at the life vest. The boy tries to cling to it but the water rips it from his hands and pulls it over his head. The vest scrapes his ears and tears off his cap as he falls through and is pulled toward the bottom of the river. He opens his eyes and sees nothing but brown. He wants to scream but one instinct overrides another and he keeps his mouth shut tight. He flails his arms, reaching for things he cannot see. A blind man in a dark room. He kicks his feet but his shoes are filling with water and he suddenly feels that they are pulling him down.
       He tries to kick them off.
       He reaches to what he thinks is the surface but he has no bearings, no idea which way is up. He just shoots his arms over his head and kicks his feet, one shoe now gone.
       Everything slows down. He stops flailing and goes still. He can see rays of sunshine stabbing down into the green-brown water, dancing almost like flames, down from the surface. He can see the orange life vest just above him, just beyond his reach. He stretches himself toward it, not trying to move, just trying to get longer and become bigger. Big enough to get there. He feels the strap tickle his palm and he reaches harder.
       He is scared but he is not afraid of dying. The idea that he could die, that he could cease to be, has not entered his mind. He is just scared of being in the water and of not being in control. He is afraid of outcomes he cannot predict. He is flailing and thrashing again but not to avoid drowning—only because he wants to be back on the boat where he could try again, hold the vest tighter, and do better. The strap is tangled around his wrist now and he manages to pull it toward him. With his other hand he grabs higher on the strap and pulls again. And soon he is hugging the vest to his chest.
       He can feel the air, he knows where the surface is now. But he cannot right himself. He has nothing to push against. The life vest squirms in his arms like a living thing, like an animal he is trying to drown. The boy still cannot breathe, cannot pull in the air to scream. He cannot open his mouth. He feels more panicked now than he ever was below the water because he doesn’t know what to do next and he must do something. He had worried about sinking and had thought if he stopped himself from sinking he would be fine, that he would be able to breathe. But he cannot. He cannot bring his face to the air.
       He feels his father’s hand then. He can’t know that it is his father but that is all he ever imagines it could be—his father’s hand under his arm and pulling.
       He clings to his father’s neck. Holds him tight. Feels his slippery skin. Presses against his stubbly cheek and smells his breath, sweet and sour and yeasty from beer.
       They kick their legs, banging knees and tangling with one another. The boy tries to climb higher, to pull his face clear of the water, but he only pushes his father down. His father spits out a mouthful of water.
       They struggle. Both sinking. And they wrestle like this, against the water, against each other—gasping, spitting, splashing.
       But the water is calm and slow. The current, neither swift nor dangerous. The boy can hear Goose. He is back in the boat and he is laughing. It is not the water; it is only their panic that pulls them down, tiring them.
       The boy and his father can make no headway. They are face to face and the boy can see his father’s eyes, wide, scared, and helpless. And the boy thinks to let go.
       Then Goose throws a float tethered to a rope and pulls them in.

The boy is on the boat. His father sits in the pilot's seat, silent, staring out past the bow. Goose has dropped the anchor. He wraps the boy in the damp beach towel and says, “Shit, Chief, I never would have messed with you if I knew you were liable to drown yourself.” The boy’s father doesn’t speak. “It was just supposed to be a joke,” Goose says, then turns his attention to the engine.
       The boy shivers beneath the hot, afternoon sun. His teeth chatter. The boat drifts until the cable is taut then slowly pivots to face upriver. The boy looks out over the stern toward the falls. The river is calm.
       Before long the boat sputters to life but runs rough and slow.
      
Later, the boy is in the farmhouse again. The boat has been returned. Goose has gone home. The boy’s mother has hugged and bathed the boy and shouted at his father, Where have you been?
       The boy has eaten and gone to bed and fallen into a deep, still sleep.
       But something has woken him.
       And so he walks. Out from the den, across the kitchen, and out onto the porch.
       There is an empty place where their car had sat near the barn. The boy’s father has gone. Left before the boy had fallen asleep. Calmly, without any yelling or scattered gravel.
       The boy does not know where he has gone. Only vaguely knows why. He knows it is not only because of his mother’s anger or because of the boy’s own fear. There are other reasons. There are places where it is hard for him to be. That there are ways that are hard for him to be.
       So his father will go away.
       But he will come back.
       When he can.
      
The boy walks down the dark, dirt road, alone. It is late. Deep in the part of the night he rarely sees.
       Tonight there is no moon. It’s over there, below the horizon, waiting, lighting some other place and leaving this piece of sky to the stars.
       Down the road, past the bend, at the edge of the woods, there is an old rope tied to a tall and gnarled walnut tree. To the end of the rope is tied the discarded tire of a wheelbarrow.
       The boy climbs onto the tire. Despite the sun having set hours ago, the cracked and dry rubber of the old tire is still warm beneath the boy’s legs. The canopy is thick above the boy’s head. The dense leaves obscure the sky and the stars, and looking up the boy sees nothing but black.
       He tightly squeezes the thick, coarse rope, feels the stiff,  prickly fibers against his raw palm.
       The swing twists, back and forth, slowly. The boy waits until he faces out toward the road and then kicks his legs. The swing moves only a little but he brings his legs in and his head forward and then he leans back and kicks his legs out again. Over and over he curls and kicks until he finds a rhythm and begins to swing. And soon he is bursting out from beneath the leaves and out over the empty space above the road with his head thrown back and his face to the sky.
       And briefly, he is weightless and sees nothing but stars. Bright, white stars piercing the black night.
       Then he is pulled back into the dark where he can see nothing.